


Within Our Hearts

by 8makes1cheese



Series: Ticking Clocks, We Count the Hours [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Childhood Trauma, Everything Hurts, First Love, I'm Sorry, I've written too many stories on here oof, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kissing, M/M, Mental Institutions, Past Child Abuse, Prequel, Superpowers, necromancer!seonghwa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:00:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8makes1cheese/pseuds/8makes1cheese
Summary: Hongjoong may be just a child, but he knows pain. He's seen it, felt it, and inflicted it, and he's come to be numb, to feel nothing when bony knuckles collide with his jaw and cruel words fall on his ears.Don't ask him how he ended up in a juvenile detention center. He's not even sure which of his many escapades landed him here. He hardly cares. It's ridiculously easy to escape.But when a new boy is brought in with a heartbreaking story and a hauntingly beautiful face, Hongjoong feels the numbness begin to fade. His heart is learning to love again, but with love inevitably comes pain.[prequel to Inside These Walls/Above Our Stars]
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Series: Ticking Clocks, We Count the Hours [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598215
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	1. beneath this roof

"What's this one here for?" 

She says it robotically, like she hasn't watched the officers drag him into the center spitting and cursing several times already. She curls her lip and marks "assault and breakout," adding to the already long list of charges. 

Hongjoong spits at her. She waves him and the officers away. 

He's so used to the center by now, he could find his way around blindfolded. Hongjoong lets out a sigh as he's shoved- they've learned by now that gentleness has no effect on him- into his room. His very empty room. 

"Solitary?" His voice goes a little higher. "You're putting me all alone?" 

"Assault is a whole new thing, kid." The officer looks apologetic. "Your other charges weren't physically harmful to others, but this..." 

The door slams in his face. 

Hongjoong sniffs. He gets up and stalks around the room to avoid crying. 

It's bare and empty, with a barred window- they really took every precaution, huh- and a small nightstand by the bed. It's not horrible, but something about the idea of being left alone in here chills him to the bone. 

Hongjoong doesn't sleep that night. 

...

The corridor is cold. Hongjoong shivers, pressed against the wall to avoid being seen. He curls his toes; the floor is icy to the point of being painful, but he barely feels it. He's incredibly near to the exit. This is the hard part; thankfully, Hongjoong has escaped the center so many times, he knows the way out by heart.

He takes a step and freezes as he hears the sound of someone gag as though about to throw up. He feels his whole body stiffen, his brain going into panic mode. 

He wants to run, but he has nowhere to go. He can't move forward fast enough; the escape is too complicated, too calculated. He can't run back, there's clearly someone back there. If it's an officer, gods know what they'll do to him. 

He hates admitting it, but the officers scare him. 

So he doesn't move. If he gets caught, he gets caught.

There's dead silence for a moment. Then a bent figure with long, soft brown hair appears within ten feet of him, lurching and covering their mouth. Hongjoong stares, shocked. 

Another kid broke out tonight. He's not the only one on the run.

He inhales sharply as the other boy lifts his head. It's the druggie they brought in a few weeks back, thirteen years old and already an addict. They said he was lucky they discovered him so early in the stages of addiction. He still had a chance. He wasn't a wreck like the mess of a cousin who landed him here...

"Shh," the boy whispers. He looks terrified. 

His face is white as a ghost, eyes rimmed with red, whether from the drug or tears, Hongjoong can't tell. Desspite it all, he's the prettiest boy Hongjoong has ever seen, and he feels dizzy just looking. He swallows. His hormones are at peak dysfunction, that's why his heart leaps just looking at the boy's face. That's all it is, he swears.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The boy sniffles. He looks scornful. "You know who I am."

"Yeah I fucking do. What are you doing, crackhead? Planning to get out and ruin more innocent kids' lives?" He spits the words. This kind of harshness is a second nature. 

"I don't wanna ruin nobody's life." The boy's beautiful face is blank and pale. "I kind of just.... I wanna die."

Hongjoong gulps. This isn't the first time he's heard that one. 

"That's a dumb idea," he finds himself saying. "Don't you dare try anything."

"I hurt all the time." The boy bites his lip. He looks oddly angelic. "I want more of the stuff Inseong gives me."

He fumbles with his words like he doesn't know where any of his sentences are going. Hongjoong doesn't fail to notice the present tense.

"Your cousin's dead, man."

"Yeah," the boy says, looking as though his mind is a thousand miles away. "That's right. He is."

"You need to drink some water, get some fresh air."

"Maybe," the boy agrees. "What are you in here for?"

Hongjoong's lip curls. That question. "Assault."

"Nice."

Hongjoong blinks. "It isn't."

"Okay."

"You're weird."

"I just need help. The lady says I'll be okay."

"Are you in rehab yet?"

"Yeah. I guess it's helping."

They stay silent for a few moments. The air all around feels like it's closing in on them. 

"Is that why you're here?" Hongjoong asks at last. "Drug use?"

He knows it is, but he asks anyway. He wants to hear the boy's story.

"I think so," the boy mumbles, "But it ain't my fault. It's Inseong's. I hate him!" He bursts out, fiery, eyes overflowing with tears. "I fucking hate him!"

"He's dead and gone. He can't hurt you."

"He liked touching me," the boy whispers. "A lot. Too much. He said I was pretty. I don't wanna be pretty."

Hongjoong's stomach lurches. He's heard that one, too. Girls and their brothers. Boys and their sister's boyfriends. His and creepy single uncles. It happens all the time, and that's far too much.

"How- how much?" He stammers. 

"I don't know," the other's voice shakes. "I can't remember."

"You were drugged?"

"Drunk. Intoxicated." 

"Oh."

He's heard that one as well. He doesn't want to hear it again.

The boy closes his eyes. He looks unreal, a terrible kind of beautiful. "Who are you?"

"Hongjoong."

"Hongjoong," the boy repeats, trying out the name. It sounds heavenly coming from his lips. "Hello, Hongjoong. I'm Seonghwa."

...

"This time," Hongjoong says firmly, "I can't risk staying in the city." 

"So we leave?" Seonghwa looks tired. "Do I get more.... what's it called?" 

"Not yet." Hongjoong swallows. He survived an extra four weeks in the center for Seonghwa's sake, but he's not sure the boy is ready to leave at all. "We gotta get away first." 

"Okay." Seonghwa follows him obediently, and Hongjoong's heart hurts. He looks away and clears his throat. 

"I don't know where we'll go, but we can find somewhere. Let's not just give up." 

He puts an arm around Seonghwa involuntary, only to be violently shoved away. 

"Don't touch me." Seonghwa's face is white as a sheet. "Please, don't touch me." 

He doesn't sound angry. He sounds terrified. 

"I won't," Hongjoong swallows a sob. "I promise I won't." 

"Really?" 

"Really." 

"Swear it?" 

"I do." 

And yet Seonghwa stays a small distance away from him from then on. Hongjoong's tears sting at his eyes. Seonghwa has so much trauma, so much pain inside him, he can't bear the touch of another human. That fucking sucks.

They sleep on the hard ground that night. Hongjoong keeps his promise. 

He barely gets any rest at all.


	2. upon this ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two years later

It's been two years since the night they broke out. 

Hongjoong lights a cigarette, staring off into space with a thoughtful expression. His feet, submerged in the creek, feel cold, but he's used to it. The creek water is warm enough out of the current, but Hongjoong is directly in it. 

He tilts his head to one side and blows a puff of smoke out into the crisp air. His eyes find their way to Seonghwa, waist deep in the warmer water a few feet away, wet hair clinging to his temples and droplets gliding down his face. Moonlight reflects off the little drops of water trickling over his bare shoulders, and he looks ethereal. 

Seonghwa has the Mark. He never told Hongjoong, but he's seen it many times now, and he knows Seonghwa showed him on purpose. Neither of them has addressed it. Hongjoong wonders if they ever will. 

"You look like you want something," Seonghwa says it like a question. Hongjoong grinds out his cigarette and licks his lips. 

"I just wanted to ask you.... about the Mark." 

Seonghwa freezes. 

"I don't want to talk about it," he says coldly. 

Hongjoong winces. Seonghwa looks more afraid than angry. "I'm sorry. I won't ask again." 

Seonghwa's expression softens. He raises a slender hand and runs it through his hair. "I'm sorry, too, for snapping at you. Maybe one day I'll be okay talking about it, but not now..." 

Hongjoong nods. He understands. 

...

𝘏𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘫𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘩𝘸𝘢. 

Hongjoong loves Seonghwa, and he doesn't know what to do about it. For how do you love someone, how can you ever love someone who flinches when your fingers brush their skin, whose eyes fill with fear when you get too close, whose face reads panic when you speak too sweetly to them? How do you love someone who's been damaged so many times that they may not even be fixable? How do you love someone who's rightly afraid to love you back? 

Hongjoong stands and slips away from the camp, down to the water where they spoke earlier. He slips out of his clothes and into the water, waist deep, letting out a small sigh as all his muscles relax. Here, he can think. He can function. 

But he can't, because he always comes back to Seonghwa. 

As if on cue, the taller boy appears, rubbing sleep from his eyes, worry written all over his face. "Hongjoong! There you are, oh my god, I was afraid-" 

His voice breaks. He sinks onto the bank of the creek, letting his feet dip under the water. "I thought you'd gone off and left me." 

Hongjoong's heart aches. "Never. I'm not leaving you." 

Seonghwa looks up at him slowly, and as usual he looks afraid; but this time, there's something else too, something too deep and too pure for Hongjoong to understand. 

Then Seonghwa raises his hand slowly, trembling slightly, and holds it out to him. 

"Can I?" Hongjoong whispers. 

Seonghwa nods at him. 

Hongjoong reaches out and slowly, carefully, gently lets their fingertips brush together. Seonghwa shivers, but he doesn't pull away; he lets Hongjoong's hand wrap around his. Hongjoong holds his breath. He almost can't believe this is actually happening. 

Seonghwa inhales slowly, and when he speaks, Hongjoong jumps slightly in shock. Seonghwa winces, but doesn't let go of Hongjoong's hand. It's heartwarming. 

Seonghwa licks his lips nervously. "Inseong..." his voice cracks. "He was never gentle. He was never kind. I can't remember ever trusting him, I was just afraid..." He swallows. "But you, you're not like that. You actually care, you wouldn't... wouldn't hurt me." His eyelashes flutter as he looks down at the glistening water. "I trust you." 

Hongjoong draws a shaky breath. "I trust you too. And... thank you. For trusting me." 

He smiles warmly. "I won't let you down. That's a promise." 

Seonghwa smiles back at him, and gods, Hongjoong loves him.


	3. beyond these horizons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...

Hongjoong wakes up one night to sobbing. 

He shifts, his eyes readjusting to the darkness, searching instantly for Seonghwa. He spots the taller boy in an instant, leaning against a rock with his knees hugged to his chest. His shoulders are shaking. 

Hongjoong moves quickly. "Seonghwa." 

He reaches his hand out automatically. Seonghwa looks up and whispers, "Please don't touch me." 

Hongjoong draws his hand back immediately. 

"I- I keep thinking about it," Seonghwa whispers. "About how it contaminates me- I'm disgusting, you shouldn't- you shouldn't stay near me. Why do you?" 

"You're not contaminated, you're not disgusting. It wasn't your fault," Hongjoong whispers. "You were a victim, you-" 

"Not that." Seonghwa's tear-stained face is achingly beautiful. "The Mark. My- what I can do. You'll hate me, Hongjoong, I know you'll hate me." 

And then he does something Hongjoong never imagined. He reaches out and hugs him, actually wraps his arms around Hongjoong and hugs him, gently resting his head on the smaller boy's chest. "I should tell you. I can't keep something like this a secret forever." He shudders. "But I hate it... I hate it so bad." 

"You can tell me anything." 

And so Seonghwa tells him. He whispers it, his voice filled with fear; he can raise the dead, and he can return them to their graves. The Mark on his skin was born out of the shadows themselves, and his power forever ties him to death and darkness. Hongjoong holds him, never saying a word, just wishing with his whole heart for Seonghwa to someday understand that Hongjoong could never, ever hate him.

"Now you know," Seonghwa says softly. 

"I love you," is Hongjoong's answer. 

He isn't sure what makes him say it. In the silence that follows, he scarcely dares to breathe, the quiet itself deafening. 

"I love you too." 

...

The government finds them soon after. 

Hongjoong has always been dimly aware that the Mark was considered a curse. Those born with it were dangerous, looked at as outcasts and freaks. But none of it seems real until he's watching Seonghwa be led away by two armed guards, four more walking in front and back of him. He goes with them silently, making no move to fight. Almost as though he has been waiting for this. 

Hongjoong is not nearly so calm. He screams and tries to follow them, being held back by a guard with a white mask. Hongjoong feels tears gathering in his eyes, and he calls out a last, broken "I love you." 

Seonghwa answers him, voice clear, as though it's just an everyday exchange between a normal couple. "I love you too." 

The doors of the government vehicle swing closed, and Hongjoong is alone.


	4. a shattered heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> their lives are no fairy tales.

They don't take him back to the center. 

Instead, Hongjoong is placed in a group home, gone right back to the sullen, unlikeable boy of five years ago. They don't expect him to last two days without attempting to run. When the four week mark comes, they realize that this cold-faced boy has no intention of running this time. 

Hongjoong has spent his whole life moving, with never a moment to rest, to sit still, to notice the world around him. But things change when the one person who actually cares is ripped from your arms and dragged away to gods know where. Hongjoong feels empty. For the first time in his life, he feels no desire to escape his newest prison. 

It's been two excruciating months when a neatly dressed man steps briskly up to the door and knocks, asking for Kim Hongjoong. The woman in charge of the home calls for him, and he drags himself forward listlessly. The man shakes his hand and says in a smooth, oily voice, "You may see your little corpse boy now." 

Little corpse boy. 

Hongjoong doesn't punch him. It takes all his self control. He puts the man on the long, ever-growing mental list of people he wants to see burn. 

And when the man smiles and tells Hongjoong that his little corpse boy is in an asylum, Hongjoong doesn't scream. He bites his tongue until the taste of copper spreads through his mouth and the pain makes his head spin, but he's silent, nodding as if everything is fine. The man keeps talking. 

His name is Jeong Changjin. He's a government official, high in office, very respected. Hongjoong doesn't respect him. Why would you respect anyone who supported and even aided the erasure of a whole race of human beings? 

When Jeong Changjin tells Hongjoong that Seonghwa is in solitary confinement, he doesn't curse, holding back the fiery words rising on his still bloody tongue. Necromancers, Changjin explains smoothly, are the first, the rarest, and the most dangerous of the Marked. Some can only raise the dead; but some can do more. The ones that can suck out a person's very soul are the ones they shoot. 

It's when Changjin puts a greasy attempt at a pitying smile on his face and says that Seonghwa cries Hongjoong's name at night that he breaks. 

"Shut up," Hongjoong hisses. There are tears gathering in his eyes. He spits blood on the clean dashboard of Changjin's car. "Shut the fuck up already." 

Changjin's face turns cold. "I would advise you, young Mr. Kim, to watch your language. You do not know what I could do to you." 

"What are you doing to him?" Hongjoong's voice nearly cracks. "Why are you hurting him? He's only a teenager, a human just like us. He didn't do anything wrong." 

Changjin chuckles softly. "A human," he repeats. "Like us. Oh, you're cute." 

Hongjoong is silent for the rest of the ride. 

When they let him into the cramped little room at the asylum- and it sure looks like an asylum, right out of a horror movie, Hongjoong thinks- he sinks into his chair feeling relieved. That relief fades when Changjin remains in the doorway. 

"As much as it inconveniences the both of us," the man says, "I'm afraid I am required to remain." 

Hongjoong hates him. 

He opens his mouth to retort, but just then a door creaks open and a woman in black pants and a crisp white shirt enters. Behind her shuffles a man dressed the same, and beside him, wrists held firmly by the two, is Seonghwa. 

Hongjoong flies from his chair. He forgets Changjin, the asylum, his anger, everything. All he sees is those hands on Seonghwa's wrists. They're touching him. Hongjoong looks up and sees the mix of terror and shock on Seonghwa's face. 

"Hongjoong?" He says faintly. 

"Let go of him!" Hongjoong says fiercely. 

Changjin begins, "I'm afraid-" but Hongjoong whirls on him. 

"Oh, shut your mouth," he sneers. "No one cares what you have to say." He spins back around. "Stop touching him." 

"It's not allowed," the woman says. 

She sounds... sorry. Like she actually cares, like she wishes she could let go. 

Hongjoong meets her eyes. They're brimming with tears. 

"I would," she says sadly. "Believe me, I would. I know his story. It's not right, but what happens to him if I let go is worse." She manages a smile. "I'm Jihyo." 

Hongjoong nods faintly. "H-" he clears his throat. "Hongjoong." 

Seonghwa looks at him in awe. He's still pale, hands flexing nervously in the tight grip of the man and Jihyo's gentler hold, but the fear in his eyes has faded. "I miss you." 

Not "I missed you." "I miss you." Hongjoong feels a lump in his throat. 

"I miss you, too," he croaks. 

Jihyo is wearing gloves, he notices. He thinks briefly that this woman doesn't belong here any more than Seonghwa does. She should be somewhere better, and so should he. 

"I love you," Hongjoong adds. 

Seonghwa's lips quirk upward. "I love you, too." 

Hongjoong lifts his hand slowly, cupping it and holding it out, a question in his eyes. Seonghwa leans forward and rests his cheek on Hongjoong's palm, closing his eyes. 

"Can you kiss me?" He whispers. 

Hongjoong swallows. "In front of them?" 

Seonghwa smiles at him. "Will we ever have another chance?" 

The bright white of the walls seems to be closing in on them, drowning them in artificial-smelling paint. The light coming through the window is a taunt. The barred window. His Seonghwa is living behind actual bars. 

Hongjoong kisses him softly, murmering against the soft lips that he never wants to pull away from. "I'll get you out of here. I promise." 

He pulls back reluctantly. Seonghwa lifts his head. 

"That's enough," Changjin says coolly. "Let's go." 

"I'm sorry," Jihyo whispers. 

Hongjoong smiles at her. There's nothing he can say. "Thank you?" "It's all right?" "I'm sorry too?" He might have opted for the last one if Changjin hadn't grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him away. 

Hongjoong doesn't move or speak on the ride back to the home. He has an idea. 

...

Hongjoong struggles his idea. 

It doesn't take much to be a guard at an asylum, as he's a good fighter anf experienced with mentally unwell people, but the real struggle lies in the prejudice, the bigotry and hatred of the people he finds himself working with and for. 

It's worth it. Worth it for the quickly stolen kisses and brief touches, hearing Seonghwa say his name and answering, the daily "I love you" and the smile that comes with it. It's worth it just to be able to love Seonghwa, even like this. Even when it rips his heart a little more every minute. 

He hates to watch the years beating Seonghwa's beautiful face with their cruel hands, to watch the cold seeping into his eyes, to hear the harsh tone his voice is slowly gaining. The loving phrase once spoken with such warmth is now clipped and chilly, falling flat as it reaches Hongjoong's ears. They don't kiss anymore; it's too high of a risk. They don't even touch each other. Hongjoong still promises, every day, that he'll get Seonghwa out and away. The answer grows shorter every day. 

The day Seonghwa doesn't answer his "I love you" is the day Hongjoong realizes it's truly over.

He cries like he never has before that day. Cries for the life he never had, the life Seonghwa never had, the love that left him, the freedom he lost. 

He cries, and when he's finished, he stands back up and keeps moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't going to be a happy end, but if you continue to Inside These Walls and then Above Our Stars, it gets better, I promise


	5. connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next book is "inside these walls" and that's where the story continues :)) shameless promotion here

"Good evening, Seonghwa." 

His own icy, calm voice makes him wince. 

Seonghwa is silent, of course. Hongjoong can't believe he got his hopes up again. 

"I brought you food." 

I don't want it. 

These days, he doesn't even say that anymore. Hongjoong almost misses the curses thrown at him before; at least he got to hear Seonghwa's voice. 

"I'll get you out," he says quietly. "I promise." 

Liar. 

The word rings in his head, loud and clear. He's heard Seonghwa say it many times. 

"I love you." 

He closes the door behind him. 

Seonghwa closes his eyes and breathes in and out slowly. "I love you too." 

He knows Hongjoong doesn't hear him. 

....

When Choi San was eight, he discovered he wasn't normal. 

He discovered that "normal" didn't mean moving so fast that other people could barely see you. "Normal" didn't mean running what was supposed to be an hour-long jogging trail in less than ten minutes. "Normal" didn't mean beating every other child in a race because you ran so fast they looked like snails in comparison. 

He wasn't normal at all, and he was ok with that. 

When Choi San was eleven, he met Jung Wooyoung. 

He met a boy whose voice had a mind of its own; it could creep inside your brain and whisper threats until it destroyed you, it could dance its way among crowds throwing taunts that no one could find the source of, it could whisper a clear "I love you" from a different room. He didn't discover the last one until later. 

When Choi San was fourteen, he watched a boy scream as though his heart had been ripped in half as a young man with the face of a broken angel was dragged roughly away from him. 

When Choi San was nineteen, he started finding the letters, blown in by the wind from someone he didn't know. From an asylum. Or a prison. 

And when Choi San was twenty-two, he made a decision. And Jung Wooyoung, twenty-one, stood by him. 

When San and Wooyoung were twenty-two and twenty-one, they watched the asylum burn as they sheltered the broken angel and his heartsick human companion. 

San was never destined to be normal. 

Wooyoung was never meant to be normal either. 

Seonghwa never had a chance at being normal. 

Hongjoong may have been fully human, but he was never like other humans. 

When Choi San was twenty-two, he found himself a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ://


End file.
